


why don't you figure my heart out?

by onceuponawar



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Caitlin-centric, F/M, I want a friendship like Caitlin and Cisco's, SnowBarry - Freeform, if you only read the beginning, minor killervibe, the song the title is from has nothing to do with the fic at all i am just obsessed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 10:38:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11183382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceuponawar/pseuds/onceuponawar
Summary: She'd stuck out against the landscape, or, more accurately, her hair had. It was still a pure white, a sharp juxtaposition to her entirely black outfit, one which clung to her frame. And before Cisco had even had a chance to open his mouth, she'd said the words she was repeating now:“Why didn't you tell me?”[3x23 response fic]





	why don't you figure my heart out?

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this immediately after 3x23, when I was really curious as to how Caitlin would react to knowing Barry had taken a permanent place in the Speedforce. Unfortunately, I hadn't had time to post it since then, but here it is now! Enjoy

“Why didn't you tell me?” 

Caitlin’s words are calm, but Cisco has known her long enough to hear the brokenness behind the words; the hurt. And, despite the agreement the team had made in Barry’s absence, he feels terrible. She cared for him, too, whether she was a meta or not, whether she had betrayed them or not, she still had a right to know. 

It had been four months since not-Nora-Allen had lead Barry into the Speed Force to pay his penance for creating Flashpoint. 

For the most part, the team had managed to keep themselves together. Wally took up the main speedster role, Cisco and Gypsy helping as necessary, with Iris and Joe still lingering about the Lab and helping with whatever they could. They still fought and captured and locked away metas, but the air is never clear. It's constantly weighed with grief and a sadness Cisco can't bear some days, so he hides away, tinkering with gadgets he knows are useless. 

Terry had gone back to her job at Central City University, teaching a class on quantum physics and mourning what could have been. Julian had all but quit showing up after the first few weeks, drowning in the excess of CSI work after Barry “quit”. 

It's never the same. Cisco doesn't think it ever will be, not with the wound of losing Barry along with Caitlin reopening itself every time they step into the Lab. But they never talk about it, just letting it hang between them anytime they're all gathered in the same room. They can do all the same, normal, everyday things, but that doesn’t fill the absence of Barry’s giddy laugh or Caitlin’s affectionate pestering or the constant tap of H.R’s drumsticks.

On cynical days, he thinks that he's the only one of the original trio left. The only one completely himself and here on this earth. But then he'd seen the frost crawling across the high, rectangular windows of the cortex and he'd felt his heart skip a beat in hope. She was asking for him after so long, he knew it. So he'd hurried out into the dark of near-midnight. 

She'd stuck out against the landscape, or, more accurately, her hair had. It was still a pure white, a sharp juxtaposition to her entirely black outfit, one which clung to her frame. And before Cisco had even had a chance to open his mouth, she'd said the words she was repeating now:

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“Caitlin-”

“Cisco.” It's the first time he meets her eyes, pupils all Caitlin-brown and pouty. It almost feels like before, until frost begins to spread under her feet. He opens his mouth to ask if she'd had any luck getting that under control, if she could return to the team, but she beats him again.

“How long did you think you were going to be able to keep it a secret? Would you have ever told me he was gone?” The frost continues to spread under their feet, it creeps near his gold-toed Vibe boots, but Caitlin doesn’t seem to notice. “I- I left, Cisco, and that’s something I have to live with everyday. Just the same way I have to live with the fact that, because I left, I didn’t get to say goodbye. But, God, couldn’t you have told me? I- oh, God-”

Cisco doesn’t lurch forward in time to catch her before she collapses to her knees on the thin layer of ice she’s created beneath them. It looks like she’s in the center of a broken mirror. Her tears freeze halfway down her cheeks. He sinks down in front of her, gripping her shoulders and trying to catch her eye. He tries not to let his body movement show that he’s afraid she’s becoming Killer Frost again, that this could be what breaks her a second time. “Cait…Caitlin, hey, shh… it’s alright.” He moves to pull her closer, but it’s as though she’s frozen in place.

“I never said goodbye to him, Cisco. I never told him how sorry I am for everything. God, I caused him so much pain, she was so angry at him for not trying harder, she had so much hatred. So, so much hatred. And I never got to apologize for all of it. Wha- what if he didn’t realize, Cisco? Realize that I thought I had more time to make everything right, once I got her under control? I thought I had more time- God, it’s all so wrong.” Here she finally breaks into hysterics Cisco can’t understand and he pulls her into a hug, patting her hair down.

He’d had his doubts when the rest of the team had voted to leave Caitlin in the dark about the details, since they really no longer knew where her loyalties lied, they said, but he had let it happen. She’d always been level-headed, as Caitlin at least, if she found out she could come to grips logically.

This breakdown was as far from logical as Cisco had ever seen her.

Finally, still gripping Caitlin tightly, he places his chin on the top of her head and whispers to the frigid air. “What’s all wrong?”

“I can’t control her; Killer Frost. Everything I do, I hear her lurking in the back of my mind, fighting to regain dominance over my consciousness. I feel like my own mind is at war constantly. Even now, she’s telling me I need to pull away, that if you cared anything for me you would have told me he was gone.” Cisco grip on her tightens as she continues to whisper. 

“And Barry- I- I think I fell in love with him, am in love with him, I don’t know. I- she followed him so easily, just his face, even scarred, compelled her loyalty. Then I watched him show Savitar mercy and I realized I loved him… here, too. But I needed time to get her under control so I left. I left but I thought he would be here when I got back, Cisco.” Her voice breaks. “I thought he would be here. But he’s not. And I don’t know how to save him, I’ve ran so many scenarios through my head, alternatives, none of them ever work. I’m so lost, I’m supposed to always there be for him and I can’t be. How do you deal with it? What was it like saying goodbye?”

Cisco’s eyes are watering now too, but he refuses to blink them away. They both just needed to expose themselves here, to let all of the pain and anger and grief out. Bottling things up never worked. 

Maybe that was his problem—all of their problems—this whole time.

He breathes a deep sigh. “Terrible, Caitlin. He told me that it all rested on me now, that I was his hero. Not to mess it up with Gypsy.” She laughs at that; watery but there and he knows he's breaking the shield she's put up around herself. 

“Is he…?”

“The Speedforce said he wouldn't be in hell. He's okay, I think. If we can trust the Speedforce, but it took the form of his mother, I think it was a peace offering. He didn't look afraid when he left, not half as afraid as the rest of us, the lightning was tripping me out; he just looked like it was all… bittersweet. His personal finish line.”

Caitlin takes one long sniff and breathes a sigh against the base of his neck. It's cold air she exhales, but it doesn't scare Cisco as much as it used to. This woman isn't quite the same one he held as she cried over her deceased, then resurrected, fiancée, she's a little more broken, a little more scarred and a lot more powerful, but that's okay. She's on her way to becoming something greater than she ever was before. This much Cisco knows. She's a badass, she'll get through.

After, he leads her back into the Lab and she's reintroduced to the team, in a way. And eventually they do learn to trust her again, after they stop seeing her as the villain who aided in Iris’s demise (which Caitlin apologies profusely for until Iris says she'd hate her more if she didn't stop.) 

The days after are slow and filled with frustration when, time after time, Caitlin’s eyes will blaze a bright, icy white when she uses her powers. Most of the time she can talk herself down, but when she can't, Cisco (or even Iris, now) is there to remind her of who she is. It takes time, so, so much, but eventually Caitlin accepts both parts of herself, the good and the evil, and she's in complete control for the first time in what feels like a forever all pressed into three months. 

They all realize after her first mission that she may be the most powerful of them all. Cisco grins with pride every time she delivers a witty one-liner and hauls a criminal back to the pipeline. He gives her her name: The Frost. And before Caitlin can even object, Iris has it printed in the papers and posted on her blog. It catches on fast and before long Cisco is teasing her about how if Frost gets more popular than Vibe then he will not hesitate to take her down.

All of this together eventually mends the holes the team had—in efficiency and in their hearts—during those four, tragedy-heavy months before Caitlin arrived again. Barry is not forgotten, it would be impossible to forget him, but just being together and taking down criminals and really, truly laughing (mainly at pranks, which are the team’s new thing) helps to ease the pain. 

And when Barry does return, as he always does, Cisco urges Caitlin to act on the feelings she told him about three months ago. The feelings she'd been hell-bent on avoiding talking about since that very day on her ice. And Cisco understands, in a way, that it's hard. They'd been friends for a long time before whatever Caitlin was feeling now had come into play (how long ago had they come into play, though? this was another one of the mysteries Cisco knew he had very little chance of ever solving.)

Four weeks after Barry’s return, just when things are finally falling into place again, Cisco confronts Caitlin in her office. He barters, like only an online vintage comic book collector could, mentioning what happened the last time she kept secrets. She argues that there was a stark difference between cold powers and romantic feelings, but Cisco can see he's wearing her down, slowly but surely. They have a back and forth until the sun has set outside the windows and Caitlin has subconsciously created a whirlwind of snow flurries around them. Then, on Cisco’s last words of “It's not like he can't vibrate to heat up if you kiss him, Caitlin!”, she storms out and down the hall.

Because he can't let doctors with cryokinesis just stomp away angry, he follows her, hoping to maybe apologize and prove his point some more. 

She's coated the entire floor with a thick sheet of slippery ice, just out of spite he presumes, so it takes Cisco a maddening amount of time to catch up to the cortex entrance.

When he does, it's not a sight he expects.

Caitlin is gripping the gray fabric of Barry’s S.T.A.R Labs t-shirt, pulling him down just low enough so that they can press their lips together. 

Cisco is not trying to be creepy by sticking around, really, but it's a nice sight to see his friends so happy after everything they've all been through. And he can tell that they're happy, by the way Caitlin’s lips quirk into the kiss and how Barry’s hand gently curls around her waist. 

One second he's admiring his good work and the next he's sputtering as Caitlin, breaking away from Barry only momentarily, throws a snowball at him. Before more can be fired his way, he takes his cue and rushes back down the hall, but he giggles the entire way. 

His matchmaking skills aren't so rusty, after all.


End file.
